I feel like I've noticed this on Shadowlands too. It was really only during one game though, but three players flew out to A and just sat there. Asking them to help at B over chat didn't do anything. Either way it was very frustrating to effectively be short three guys.

As of now there is no "intro" quest that will tie in gsf with the ground game in terms of story. You'll have to wait until the full release come Feb when they'll introduce a level and character neutral flashpoint that fills in GSF back story. For now you can just play GSF and make up your own backstory for the time being.

From what I heard, GSF upgrades are not legacy wide due to technical limitations. If that's the case, then I would like to suggest a Reputation faction for GSF related activities. A GSF related rep vendor can sell requisition points or equipment for credits with there being a cap on how many one can purchase based on faction reputation score (which happens to be legacy wide). So, for example, Character 'A' of the alphabet legacy has done enough GSF to earn Champion status in the GSF faction. Character B of the same legacy can now log in and buy proton torpedoes and up to say... tier 4 upgrades for said weapon with credits. Certainly this will need to be tweaked to prevent exploits, but that's the general gist.

As far of equipment upgrades, I would have preferred to see that improvements had more give and take so that every "upgrade" is actually unlocks options to improve one specification at the cost of another. One good example of this is already in game, in the form of the 5th tier cluster missile upgrade that increases damage at the cost of halving the total ammo pool. The end result is that fully upgraded ships simply have more options to customize their ships to their fighting style rather than straight up power.

Theres a thread on Reddit that OP might like the see. As far as Gunship dominance, That'll remain to be seen when the mode comes out. GS's are lining up kill after kill in Domination because capture points draw in the scouts and strike fighters. It might be an entirely different story if they were given free reign to go out and kill without having to worry about cap points. I actually see scouts leading the DM charts because of their mobility and cooldown abilities.

I'm not convinced that those are actual gameplay screens. Either way this game looks like its still very far away from seeing the light of day. Still I'm surprised that Disney would give this project to such a small development team.

unfortunately, I don't think forums rules allow that.

Some very interesting information from reddit this morning. I gotta say I'm excited, I wonder how my strike fighter holds up in death match I have to assume that it will be based on a dwindling ticket counter.

I'm the guy in the strike fighter with 4 kills per match because I'm spending the whole match hugging the nodes, breaking LoS on missile locks and chasing off attackers. In fact, I favor Ion cannons just to knock down shields in the short time that I have to set up kills for friendlies. I do not harbor any resentment to the gunships that killed 3-5 times as many as I did because I did my job and He did his. Winning domination isn't just about getting kills, Dog fights in this game aren't just about shooting people down. If we all insist that everyone walks away with the same number of kills then what we'll have is a homogenization of roles.

Oh yeah, there's definitely a market for the deeper sim. I don't deny that at all. But I argue that War thunder was built with the heavy realism mode in mind first, then pared away modeling features until they got to their arcade mode. GSF is starting from the other end with the arcadish control scheme and pseudo-roll based hit detection. It would take MUCH more time and resources for them to develop more robust physics models and true location based hit-detection. For me this would also be awesome. But I would much rather GSF devs focus on improving the direction they're heading in now. Build on the tech and the foundation they have already. Adding a realistic sim mode would be making a 90 degree turn just to climb a different steep mountain that others have started on years earlier.

Don't be discouraged and start thinking that headsets are instant win. Effective communication and team coordination is a skill just like any other, especially in this game where it is harder to keep track of your teammates than your enemies. Certainly they have an advantage but its one they have to practice at as a team to put to good use. I'm also willing to bet that the vast majority of players are pugs.

I wouldn't get too offended by this "arcade mini game" comment, I don't think the the poster meant disrespect by this. As far as space shooters go, this GSF is a bit more on the arcade side than hardcore sim. Also, as was mentioned, a cockpit view, while fun, limits the player. As such, most will not default to this in order to stay competitive. This won't even have to be enforced since a cockpit view offers nothing but disadvantages to the 3rd player view. Especially when a large part of the game involves hugging defense nodes. This leads to the real issue: is cockpit view really worth the dev's time to implement? Do they design a cockpit mode that only a handful will appreciate and even few will actively use? or use those guys to start designing new maps, ships and game modes?

Survive survive survive. If you see a node covered by 3 turrets and 4 ships and no friendly's in the vicinity, don't go there. look at the map and join up with your fellow green dots to attack en masse. Hug cover, preferably a capture point if you are a strike fighter. I'm incredibly uncomfortable in turn fights out in the open, where i'm just counting down the seconds before enemy backup arrives. use power settings. I've actually bound my power setting keys to 'q', 'e', 'z' and 'c' because i'm switching between them so often. switch to guns whenever you have a clean shot, engines whenever you're going in between nodes and shields the rest of the time. I actually have no use for the balanced power option these days.

I haven't thought about mixing the two but a twitch based ground PvP built around the same mechanics as GSF would mesh much better than the current ground PvP would. I suppose they might just queue up separately but mixed ground/air pvp would randomly pop and just take 6 players from the ground queue and 6 from the air queue.

That's two reasons BW would have to think long and hard before trying to step up the "realism". Warthunder and Star Citizen are headed by some pretty talented veterans of those genres. Competition would be tight and I wonder if the game engine can do much in way of decent physics simulation.

Dev blog says otherwise. "We literally wanted to make the pool of players as large as possible, so everyone from level 1 to level 55 will queue together, taking into consideration how developed your ships are (yes, our matchmaking system will attempt to put beginning players with beginners, and more advanced players with each other—that’s the simple version)." http://www.swtor.com/blog/galactic-starfighter-development-introduction-part-ii

This makes me wonder if they would ever consider applying a GSF make over or add on to ground pvp. That is: something based a little more on twitch skills over cool down management, acquiring new gear only means further customization of a play-style rather than linear power boosts, and - most of all - roles that are not PvE elements shoehorned into a PvP environment.

It doesn't have to be voice com. Ops leader can be given an option to have a quick command interface to issues commands with voices over or pop up orders that go to those squads. similarly individual players can have quick key commands that'll call out inc and his position can be highlighted in the map in someway

That would be crazy fun, but I can't figure out how to make pugs partner up if they don't want to. I suppose that one could pilot the ship with reduced functionality if no one decides to copilot. But if they can figure out 2 player ships, I can imagine a game play mode where 4 players can group up to man frigates

I was just thinking about that this morning. Paint schemes don't actually change the base color of the ship. I would love to one day see full fuschia scout ships blazing from capture point to capture point

I've also noticed that you need to rest your reticle on the lead indicator for a few fractions of a seconds to increase your chances of landing a hit. During this time you might notice your reticle turn a lighter blue and change shape. This is obviously much easier when your target is flying straight and level. But still, it doesn't guarantee you land your hits, i just find that it increases my chances. And with fast firing lasers I've noticed that firing in bursts helps me hit ratio, but this could just be all in my head. Finally, Yes. I've managed to score hits on enemies that I didn't have targeted (I believe). I've definitely done this with turrets and *pretty* sure i've managed to land one on a player but I can't remember exactly when.

Aside from being a little hard to see, the current lock indicator icons are a little on the boring side. I'd like to see them add different lock on indicator visuals in the future. One suggestion would maybe something reminiscent of targeting computer visuals from the original Death Star attack run. Another visual effect that is currently lacking is something that indicates when a target has activated their evasion maneuver. Its not really necessary, but if it was accompanied by the release of a volley of flares or puff of chaff it would be much easier to spot vs. just normal maneuvering on the target player's part.

I didn't go through the whole thread, so forgive me if someone's already mentioned the same thing. But aside from the strong wording, OP has a good point in advocating alternate mice/keyboard set up for GSF. I can see how some players would rather not have pitch and yaw linked to mouse and use the mouse for aiming only. This might require some clever rearranging keys to accommodate all six axis's of motion to keyboard, but I think it might be worth the dev's time to look into this.

You won't reward it by not playing or by not purchasing req transfers?

Well, there's nothing wrong with not liking what you don't like. That's what's nice about this being a side game, you can always go do what you rather be doing and still enjoy the game.